


Through A Glass

by KillClaudio



Category: due South
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-16
Updated: 2007-03-16
Packaged: 2020-02-27 18:19:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18744490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KillClaudio/pseuds/KillClaudio
Summary: A brief history of Harding Welsh.





	Through A Glass

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LJ for ds_flashfiction and the prompt 'window'. Thank you to the_antichris for a fantastic beta, and for suggesting the title.

Harding doesn’t really remember the day he graduated from the Academy. Between the heat, the hangover and the hair-of-the-dog he drank for breakfast, it’s all a blur of handshakes and photographs and, eventually, puking his guts out with three of his classmates in some godforsaken alley. 

The only part of it that stands out is the aching black hole where his father should have been, standing tall and proud with the other dads instead of lying on their couch trying to pretend he was sober. The awareness of his absence prickled under Harding’s skin all day, made it difficult to breathe. 

What Harding does remember, quite clearly, is the day Wilson graduated. The proudest day of Sherman Welsh’s life, the day his eldest son became a cop. He remembers Wilson standing there, sunshine bouncing off his carefully polished buttons, beaming under the praise and adulation heaped on him. Harding watched through the window, forgotten in the back of the car. He remembers the sight of his own face reflected in the glass.

* * *

“What have we got, Welsh?” 

Two years on the beat, and he’s never seen anything like this. He knows what he must look like, reporting to his senior officer; white and shaking and barely holding it together. 

“The victim’s name was Jade Parr, sir. Fourteen. Sister identified her. Seems, uh…” He swallows the bile rising in his throat. “Seems she was on smack. Hypo was dirty. The mix of chemicals in her blood, um…”

An accident. She had been lying in the bushes, surrounded by blood and vomit. Her skin was a pale, sickly shade of yellow, like aged parchment, and the convulsions had wrenched her body into an unnatural crouch. She’d looked like an old woman. Fourteen. 

Eventually his superior dismisses him, but he can’t go home. Instead he goes and drinks bad coffee in the grubby little diner two blocks from his apartment. Sits in the steam and stares through the window at the people still alive.

* * *

“So, Detective, what was it at the scene of the crime that distracted you from your usual hawk-eyed observation, hmm?”

Edmunds mumbles something he can’t hear. 

“Speak up, Detective.”

“There was a girl, sir.”

“Oh, a girl. God forbid that any of my detectives should have to work with members of the opposite sex. What is this, the Dark Ages?”

“No, sir.”

“No.” Welsh steps back behind his desk and reaches for a plastic bag containing a lethal-looking shard of glass covered in blood. “And what do you see here, Edmunds?”

The cop looks up. “A bag?” 

Not a good moment to get smart. 

“Do you want to know what I see, Detective? I see a damn good reason to bust you straight back down to rookie and make you earn your badge all over again, because clearly you weren’t listening the first time.” Welsh’s voice begins to rise steadily. “What I see is a piece of evidence that you didn’t notice because it was glass, and my detectives clearly can’t tell the difference between a broken window and a blood-spattered weapon!” He leans towards Edmunds and drops back down to a whisper. “This jerk nearly walked today because you can’t keep your mind on the job. Think about that.”

“Sir.”

“You’re on report. Get outta my sight.”

As soon as the door closes, Welsh collapses on the sofa. It smells of worn leather and dust and something achingly familiar. He sighs. They get younger every day.

* * *

He’s watching through the windows of his office as the creep from IA takes Vecchio into the interrogation room, to question him about Metcalf. Before the door shuts he’s on the phone to the PPL demanding an attorney, and the controlled rage in his voice must work. Malner shows up less than ten minutes later looking harassed and resolute.

There’s something wrong here. Every cop instinct Welsh has is screaming at him. He pushes the noise to the back of his head, tries to think this through. Fraser wouldn’t shoot anyone. He wouldn’t need to, he could probably talk ‘em to death first. The gun. That must be the key to working this thing out. He had Huey and Gardino comb the entire place, but if you want a job done properly…he reaches for his coat.

Five hours later, he’s walked the whole friggin’ zoo and still hasn’t found anything. In despair, he trudges around underneath the pool to stare through the underwater windows. Stare at the white blurs swimming through his reflection. And then something black catches his eye, the water flow gently nudging it along the floor of the pen. Something that might be the pistol. The currents push it a little closer, and he gets a better look.

Shit. It’s Fraser’s.

* * *

Welsh sees her coming from across the bullpen, through the half-drawn blinds of his office. Today Frannie is graduating from the Academy. Even in full dress uniform her clothes still manage to be a little too tight. Her hips still have that distinctive wiggle as she walks. He notices that the hat turned out not to be a problem.

She walks straight into his office without knocking. “Hey, sir.”

She’s never had any respect for his age or rank. He loves that about her. Loves that she can’t be intimidated or coerced. She’s going to make a good cop. 

“Ms. Vecchio. I imagine congratulations are in order.”

He’s proud of her. She’s not the same person who walked into the bullpen two years ago with her head full of clothes and shopping and Fraser. And yet she is. Whatever spark he saw that made him offer her the job, whatever inner determination and courage and patience in the face of catastrophe; she still has that. She can still de-bone a chicken in under three minutes (he knows this for a fact - she made him dinner last week).

“Ah, sir? I was wondering…see, my idiot ex-brother bought tickets to some boxing match next week, and now he and Fraser can’t go. So I thought, since it seemed like you enjoyed it last time…although I do not know how you can eat with blood spattering everywhere like that.”

Welsh has to suppress a smile. “I can see I have much to teach you about the art of boxing.”

“Oh yeah?” The glance she throws at him is arch, lit with promise. “I might have something to teach you, too.”

She closes the door behind her and sashays away across the bullpen. He watches her through the window. Watches the smile on his own face reflected in the glass.


End file.
